


His Priority

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12154905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: Mac will always be Jack's first priority. (Unbeta'd)





	His Priority

_“Jack… Jack, help me…_ Jack _!”  
_

It’s the voice that wakes him up, Mac’s voice calling his name. Jack will always answer him.

He groans and touches his aching head. He feels sick and thinking hurts! What the hell happened? Then it all rushes back and he sits up straight fast, only to swallow hard as bile rises up his throat. Nausea sucks!

“Jack…”

“Mac?” he calls out, scrambling to his feet. “Mac, where are you?” He looks around frantically but there’s no one around.  _No one._ No Mac, no Nikki, no bad guys, Jack’s alone there, on the road with their lit up van.

“J-Jack…”

Jack twists around and runs up to the guardrail. He looks down with his heart in his throat and there, in the water, something -  _someone!_  - is moving, a flash of a white color.

“Mac?” Jack screams and he tries to push down his rising panic when nobody answers this time, when the pale shape in the darkness stops moving. “ _Mac_!”

_Dammit!_ Jack thinks, racing back to the van where he grabs a powerful flashlight whose strong beam cuts through the darkness like a knife. Back at the guardrail, Jack aims it down, swinging it back and forth across the rippling surface -  _there_!

“ _Fuck_!” Jack curses. He jumps over the guardrail and starts climbing down the steep slope, slipping and sliding and catching himself on protruding roots and slim but surprisingly strong branches of sparse, clinging trees.

He can see only Mac down there, floating in the water face down, unmoving. Nikki’s nowhere to be seen. And honestly, right now? Jack doesn’t care about her, as harsh as it may sound. Yes, Nikki is a member of their team, but she’s not a member of  _his_ team. It’s just him and Mac on  _his_ team and it’s been so for years. Mac will  _always_ be his first priority, everyone else a distant second. It’s not that he doesn’t care about others, he just… cares about Mac  _more_.

When Jack finally reaches the small pebbled beach, he lodges his flashlight firmly between two jagged pieces of rock, then he wades into the water - ankle deep, knee deep - then he jumps in and starts swimming, powerful strokes eating away at the distance between him and Mac.

And then he’s there and he’s grabbing Mac’s body, turning it around, face up…

“ _Jesus_!” Jack whispers in shock when he sees the large red stain on Mac’s chest, the hole in shirt, almost over his heart. Jesus, they  _shot_ him. “Mac?  _Mac!_ ”

No answer.

Jack starts dragging Mac back towards the beach, the blinding beam of his flashlight a beacon, and soon, his knees scrape the bottom and he stands up and turns, hooking his hands under Mac’s armpits, and with a load groan he pulls Mac out of the water and onto the beach where Jack collapses in an exhausted heap.

But it’s not over yet and Jack allows himself only a second or two of rest, just to catch his breath, because Mac’s  _not_ breathing and he’s gone from his usual paleness to a terrible shade of gray and his lips are tinged blue.  _Dammit!_

_CPR! CPR, quickly._ It’s easy to perform during a training or even in the field when the person you’re administering it to is a stranger, if they die then you’ll be sorry, certainly, but it won’t be a personal regret. But when it’s a friend, when it’s  _Mac_ …!

Then Mac chokes and starts coughing, wheezing and coughing some more, and Jack turns him onto his side so that he can vomit all the water he swallowed, coughing again and moaning with his eyes closed.

Jack’s relieved, so relieved that only now his hands finally start trembling - his hands that are leaving red smears on Mac’s soaked shirt. And Jack realizes that it’s  _still_ not over yet, that Mac might be breathing again, but he still has a bullet lodged in his chest - Jack noticed that there was no exit wound - and he’s still bleeding.  _Jesus, what a mess!_

“Nik-Nikki,” Mac stammers out and grabs Jack’s shirt, “we have to-have…  _Nikki!_ ”

Carefully, Jack helps Mac sit up, letting his friend lean against him. “I didn’t see her,” he answers, already looking around and up, searching for the best way out of here because Mac needs a doctor, he needs a hospital, now,  _right now_!

Mac’s head lolls on Jack’s shoulder and he looks up at Jack. “They… shot her,” Mac enunciates carefully and licks his lips. “She fell, Jack. She-she…  _fell_!”

Jack looks down at Mac, noticing the despair in his face, then he glances out over the water. There’s no one else out there, no body,  _nothing_. He tells Mac.

“No-no!” Mac shakes his head, trying to rise, but his body fails him and more blood gushes out of his chest wound; it’s not a trickle but a steady flow how. “She has to-she has to be here, she has to…”

Growling in frustration, Jack reaches out to grab the flashlight and makes its beam dance across the surface of the little inlet below the cliff. “There’s no one here, Mac! Look! She’s not here! She’s  _gone_!”

Mac shakes his head vigorously. “No, she can’t… you have to look for her, you have to–”

But Jack cuts him off firmly. “No, what I have to do is get you to a hospital ASAP or you’ll bleed out on me, you  _idiot_!”

“But Nikki–”

“Is either dead or she isn’t, I have no clue!” Jack snaps. “I’ll come back and look for her - or Thorton will send a team - but right now,  _you_ are my number one priority, I’m  _your_ back-up, and I’m getting  _you_ out of here. So shut up and let me do my job!”

With that, Jack lifts Mac - who cries out in pain and goes limp, losing consciousness again - off the ground and throws him over his shoulder. It’ll be a hard climb but it’ll have to do, there’s no other way out of here and up there and calling the locals for help is out of question - though Jack would do it, if there were no other choice, he would rather see them both in jail than Mac  _dead_ , thank you very much.

At the foot of the cliff, Jack turns around and towards the water and sweeps the inlet with his flashlight one last time, just to be sure, just to be able to tell Mac honestly that he did  _not_ just abandon Nikki. But there’s no one out there, nothing but silence and dark water.

_Jesus_ , Jack thinks again,  _what a mess, what a goddamn mess_. And with that, he hooks his flashlight onto his belt, and grabbing Mac’s legs, he starts climbing, the warmth of Mac’s blood trickling down his back propelling him forward at a neck-breaking speed. 

Saving MacGyver’s life is his main - and  _only_ \- goal right now. Everything else can wait, Nikki, Thorton, even the goddamn weapon. And screw anyone who thinks otherwise!


End file.
